The process of reuniting and reconciling the nation after the Civil War was a tenuous one. How did the Civil War generation understand the war? What were veterans thinking in those famous photographs of men shaking hands across the rock wall at Gettysburg? What had the war meant to women, and to United States Colored Troops? How did its meanings change in the 20th century? The President of the Society of Civil War Historians explores historical memory.

Encounters with mass violence produce horrible ruptures in people’s lives and extraordinary efforts to heal them. The trauma and pain caused by the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is revealed in countless memoirs. It highlights tensions between witnesses who insist that tragic losses not be forgotten and massive political projects to erase personal suffering through patriotic narratives and memorials.